Michele Bachmann's Reporter Problem Will Haunt Her Campaign

For a woman who won the Ames Straw Vote on a platform as a "constitutional conservative," Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann seems pretty confused about just what the Constitution contains. For the second time in as many months, handlers for the Minnesota Congresswoman have been accused of roughing up reporters on the campaign trail. Maybe it's time she change that tagline to "everything but the First Amendment conservative"? She certainly doesn't seem like she's much of a fan of the freedom of the press.

Last month it was ABC News veteran Brian Ross who was treated to a mafia-style brusing. This week it's Don Lemon, a CNN vet who says he was actually shoved into a golf cart by Bachmann's pray-the-gay away husband Dr. Marcus Bachmann. This was after some of the Congresswoman's bodyguards had elbowed him roughly, Lemon says, and he'd asked them not to.

The Ross manhandling at least made some semblance of sense: he'd dug into Marcus Bachmann's controversial gay conversion clinics and aired the family's dirty laundry on national TV. Should anyone have lashed out? Of course not, but you can see where the Bachmann camp would have been a little trigger happy.

But Lemon says he was sticking to tame topics relating to the vote in Ames. Specifically, he asked her how she'd thought she'd fare -- both in the poll and during the debates. Bachmann should have been happy to answer, or at least indifferent.

It's already clear Bachmann has a problem with several of the existing portions of our government. She's vowed to have the doors locked on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and she's gunning for the health care act (or as she calls it, Obamacare). But if she wants to be president, Bachmann is going to have to learn that the commander in chief exists within a system of checks and balances. There's no re-writing the Constitution ... even if she doesn't like those pesky reporters.